Ralph Edwards
Ralph Livingstone Edwards (June 13, 1913[1] – November 16, 2005) was an American radio and television host, radio producer, and television producer, best known for his radio-TV game shows Truth or Consequences and reality documentary series This Is Your Life.
This article is about American radio and television host and producer. For other people named Ralph Edwards, see Ralph Edwards (disambiguation).
Ralph Edwards
November 16, 2005 (aged 92)
- Radio host
- television host
- radio producer
- television producer
3
Early career[edit]
Edwards worked for KROW Radio in Oakland, California while he was still in high school.[2] After graduating from high school in 1931, he worked his way through college at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a B.A. in English in 1935.[3] While there, he worked at every job from janitor to producer at Oakland's KTAB, now KSFO. Failing to get a job as a high school teacher, he worked at KFRC and then hitchhiked across the country to New York City,[1] where, he said, "I ate ten-cent (equivalent to $2 in 2023),[4] meals and slept on park benches".[5]
After some part-time announcing jobs, he got his big break in 1938 with a full-time job for the Columbia Broadcasting System on the original WABC (now WCBS), where he worked with two other young announcers who would become broadcasting fixtures - Mel Allen and Andre Baruch.
The young director had an assured, professional manner, and in a few years he was well established as a nationally famous announcer. It was Edwards who introduced Major Bowes every week on the Original Amateur Hour and Fred Allen on Town Hall Tonight. Edwards perfected a chuckling delivery, sounding as though he was in the midst of telling a very funny story. This "laugh in the voice" technique served him well when 20th Century Fox hired him to narrate the coming-attractions trailers for Laurel and Hardy movies.[6]
Edwards was the second host of the NBC radio children's talent show The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour. He appeared in a few films, including Radio Stars On Parade with the comedy team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney, and I'll Cry Tomorrow with Susan Hayward.
Bob Barker[edit]
Edwards furthered the career of another game show host, his protégé Bob Barker.[9] The 1940s-1950s TV version of Truth or Consequences had featured Edwards, Jack Bailey, and Steve Dunne. When the show returned for another NBC run in late 1956, Edwards hired Barker, a popular West Coast radio personality, on December 21 after hearing his radio show on his car radio. During the 2001 Daytime Emmy Awards, Barker told backstage reporters that his lifelong friend Edwards told him to be no one else but himself.
Barker would host Truth or Consequences on NBC until 1965, and later in daily syndication until 1975, by which time he had also taken over a revival of The Price Is Right on CBS from 1972 to 2007 (Drew Carey has been the host since 2007). As a result, thanks to Edwards's "be yourself" admonition, Barker became as familiar with a generation of Truth or Consequences and Price Is Right viewers, as earlier fans had with Edwards and original Price Is Right host Bill Cullen during the original versions of the shows in the 1950s and 1960s.
Death[edit]
Edwards died of heart failure on November 16, 2005, in Los Angeles, California at the age of 92.[10] Shortly before his death he released a selection of his This Is Your Life programs on DVD.
Recognition[edit]
The Game Show Congress annually presents the Ralph Edwards Service Award, for those within the game show community who have worked tirelessly for charitable causes. In 2004, Edwards' son accepted the first of these awards on behalf of his father.
For his contribution to the radio and television industries, Ralph Edwards has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6116 Hollywood Boulevard (radio) and 6262 Hollywood Boulevard (television). Both were dedicated February 8, 1960.[11]
Edwards was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.[12]